


impact event

by Drbwho



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 17,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2254725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drbwho/pseuds/Drbwho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.”<br/>-Philip K Dick</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 00001

**00001**

He was reading an old book, cup of coffee balanced in hand, when the world caught fire.

16 kilometers of foreign rock collided into the soil and water-rich planet, an anticipatory population in panic and desperation below him. On closer inspection, if he’d perhaps decided to rummage the storage bay for a telescope, he was sure he could have observed the oceanic waters rise, the smoke engulf it all from his safe vantage point in the sky. He settled instead for simply watching the blaze ignite from a distance.

How many people had chosen to kill themselves before this moment? To end it all on their own terms instead of succumbing to the natural disasters that wrecked a once-prosperous planet. It would have to seem like the more acceptable solution to some, suicide. Maybe others would want to stay alive long enough to see the end, surviving a few days with an ashen sky above them. Convincing themselves they could be saved, _there’s still time for rescue_ , clinging to fiction, grasping a dream with soot-covered hands.

The reality was far grimmer; no hope of survival beyond a handful of weeks when the temperatures plummeted and food grew scarce. This information had been made public only days before (and almost a year from when scientists urged the world leaders to give them more funding to analyze the rock whose trajectory was dangerously close to Earth). The last three days would have been filled with despair on a global scale.

He turned the page of his book, still half-musing on the world below. It wasn’t a surprise. Not even the rattling of the vessel, walls and floor jarring at the aftershock of the burst of energy emanating from behind was a shock to him.

He had been informed, given an approximation, _a rough set of days left_ , before his departure. It was all explained to him; what he would be seeing, what to be worried about, how to cope with the loss of humanity. He had the file, an overview somewhere on his computer. It had been sent to him by person probably now being scorched to death on the plant’s surface. Or maybe he was being asphyxiated by smoke. Possibly drowned by the toppling tsunamis. Who could know, really, how each _little ant_ would fall?

He held no love for the world growing smaller by the second. He would have stomped them out himself, all the tiny bugs, if he could have.

Instead, he chose to live.

He took a sip another sip of the liquid. He’d enjoy it while he had it-a great deal of the food stores were limited or perishable. Coffee would be a rarity in future days, and nonexistent eventually. All that would be left in the end would be bags and boxes of freeze-dried nourishment that would be a poor imitation of Earth’s cuisine. The assumption would be that wherever the ship ended up they would be able to grow food and have freshwater. Petyr Baelish had his doubts, but he also had enough in his stores to last him for years, decades even.

Seven ships had been sent out. It had been decided by a committee somewhere, that seven would be enough. _It would have to be enough_ ; time constraints and building schedules had to be considered, as well as the selection process; who would be saved? How would they choose the select few? Who would receive the golden tickets?

Each ship was designed to travel to one of the seven planets that were deemed able to sustain human life, according to the readings meticulously performed by the leading scientists. This was meant to be mankind’s last hope for a continued existence.

He could see them all on his monitor on the deck, the other ships; six little red blips on the black screen including his own. One was already missing. Number four hadn’t been visualized after departure, the red indicator disappearing just after launch. _Humanity isn’t off to a great start. Or end, rather. One down, six to go._

The other vessels had maintained radio silence since the explosion. Not that he communicated with the others, he didn’t care enough to. But he did listen. He heard nothing now, communication devices turned off in a solemn observation of a now-endangered species. Were they watching as well, like he was? Were they crying silently or heaving great sobs, hugging themselves tightly? Had they locked themselves away, away from the failing world, pretending for a few moments that everything was going to be _just fine_?

He set the book down.

They would be out of signal range soon, not able to receive messages in real-time, instead relying on messages days after they were transmitted. And then longer, as years went by. And then nothing at all.

That’s when he would be truly alone.


	2. 00031

**00031**

Maybe it was the loneliness, in the end, that broke him.

He had anticipated it, had even been _relieved_ by the empty corridors, pristine white and silver walls with no one but him walking them. He wore no disguises anymore; there was no one to impress. His mind alone kept him company. The nothing-sound of space was a lullaby he slept soundly to.

Until he stopped sleeping, unable to differentiate night from day in a place where there was neither. Until his linear thoughts grew deviant and his body began to betray him. Even then, he couldn’t convince himself he had made an awful decision.

The choice had been made long ago now, to be alone.

 

**00034**

Every once in a while, he would chuckle to himself unprovoked.

He took to picking at his nails, at his fingers almost constantly. Digging and pulling at any fraying bit of skin, tugging at the subcutaneous tissue until blood let and blisters formed.

He couldn’t remember what mint tasted like anymore.

He would often think back to something Cat had said to him just before he left, when she’d begged him to take along one of her children. To save them, give them a chance to keep living, or at least to _keep existing_. She became the ghost that haunted him in the weeks turning to months spent in the cold box in which he had trapped himself. Almost daily her specter whispered her last words to him, the words she yelled as he boarded the ship:

“ _Humans aren’t supposed to exist isolated.”_

Maybe she’d cursed him with those words.

 

**00041**

He found her, Cat’s little auburn daughter. He caught sight of her hiding in the _cattle room_ , stealing his food and the nourishment from the perfectly preserved human cargo he guarded. He spent hours watching her through the cameras, nicking books from his library, carefully avoiding his own daily routines, kicking at the cryogenic pods until they swayed. _How had she avoided the sensors?_

 _  
_He was quietly amused, but more than that he was quietly dismayed. An alarm rang in his head, a red light, more red than the girl's hair, blinking behind his eyeballs.

 _A threat._ A threat to his existence, to his food stores, to his longevity. And he knew what he must do.

Even so, he slept for six hours straight that night.

 

**00052**

He was angry the first time he kissed her, and so was she; teeth clashing together clumsily, hastily. But he couldn't deny enjoyed it. Human contact, the feeling of another person, a soft-skinned girl full of fury and more than that, _fear_. Fear of being alone, fear of what he would do to her. And she _should_ fear him; he had her life in his hands. 

She didn't know what to do with her tongue, with her lips, at the rough contact. Still, her mouth was smooth and warm against the unkempt hair on his face.

With the girl locked against him, he toyed with the bottle in his pocket, musing. Maybe he didn't have to kill her.

 

**00056**

The second time was better, but only just. Murder was no longer on his mind; the ship was big enough for them to exist separately, she’d proven that much to him. Was it curiosity that brought her back to him? Surely the ship had enough space, enough activities, to occupy her time. She must have sought him out for the one thing their life-preserver couldn't provide. 

A better man might not have accommodated.

_Too bad for her, then, that all the better men were dead._

 

**0059**

The third time there was no anger, but there was _a touch_. She brought a hand up and gently scratched his head, just where the gray had begun to grow. Just where Cat had caressed when she kissed him goodbye. It had been a brotherly kiss, a disappointed kiss. He would never have mistook it for anything else, not after his childhood folly.

Sense memory was a terrible thing, and just the simple contact, the reminder of a past infatuation caused his blood to boil and his mind to drift in a vulgar direction. 

She was shoved against the control panel, her hands flexing around his neck for support. The panel sounded, beeping in an error message that went unacknowledged. A quiet whimper near his ear as his mouth pressed to her neck, the noise full of surprise and _something else_. Did she want him? _Did he care?_ His lips met and parted hers, his arms around her waist dragging her closer. Did she know what it meant to want someone? Tongues intertwined, the girl’s breath became rougher through nostrils, ejecting air in bursts when oxygen was demanded. How old was she anyway? Old enough to be his daughter, surely. Not that it stopped him from slithering a hand up to toy with the zipper that was the only barrier between clothed and bare. Had anyone ever seen her, _all of her_? Her kisses spoke of inexperience. A naïve girl’s legs were now sweeping up and around his torso.

Her untarnished skin hadn’t been explored by another; he was sure of it.

He was hard, had been hard, pressing against her stomach with no attempt to hide his arousal. It would be so easy, to pull the zipper of her suit down and fuck her right there, watch her bleed onto the dashboard and scream his name. There would be no one to hear her, hear them. There was no one left to care.

Something made him stop, however. Was it his conscience, returned after decades of disregard?

He looked down at her sadly, pulling away slightly, reaching up and brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “I could do such awful things to you.” A statement meant to be cautionary.

She held his gaze, blue eyes unwavering. “Then do them.”

He smirked. _You have no idea what you’re asking._ “Not today.” _But someday. All we have is time. Time and nothing and nothing._  

Her words told him that she knew the truth that it had taken him a lifetime to learn.

_Humans aren’t supposed to exist isolated._


	3. 00077

**00077**

The entire ship was a hard, silver color, inside and out. Nothing but a grayish hue sprinkled with white separating the vehicle gliding infinitesimally through a vast expanse of black. There hadn’t been time or resources at the end to make it look domestic.

It was about survival, not comfort. They’d explained it to the 13 of them directly before launch, only after there had been grumblings at the blueprints. They were quieted, told they were _lucky_ to have been chosen at all. As a sort of punishment for complaining not one of them saw the interior until they were ready to leave in their respective ships.

Lucky wasn’t the word he would have used. Most of them were chosen because they were just significant enough, or just broken enough to not be selected for the cryogenic freeze.

He was flawed, and so despite his level of importance in the world he wasn’t selected. They needed perfect specimens to continue to human race, no room for error could be made. He may have been many things on Earth, but perfect wasn’t one of them. Doctors, scientists, world leaders, valuable people were chosen to extend their species, to preserve it. As long as they didn’t have any scars, any disease. Any stain on the fabric, no matter how small, instantly disqualified the applicant.

A single thread pulled the right way could destroy a sweater.

Despite the ship being almost completely operational on it’s own, there was still a need for someone awake on board to combat any malfunction or unanticipated errors. The machine was built in haste, after all; who knows what problems could arise? To those mechanics, preservation of their species was paramount, quickly and sadly designing and building the last vehicles that would leave the planet.

He was clever enough to keep himself alive, if only as a housekeeper, a janitor for the slumbering bodies packed into the sickbay. They were only cattle to him, the feeders in the horizontal cylindrical tubes. They were a means to buy him time, to keep him existing for a while longer.

Food was still plentiful, it would be for decades, but he was already planning for the worst. It would end with them taking from the cattle’s supply. They wouldn’t notice; the cryogenic sleep ensured they would feel no starvation, no pain. Unplugging a few of the feed-tubes would have to be the last resort for him, _for them._

_Them._

And when had the two individuals become singular in his mind? Certainly his proprioception had been out of balance since the lift off years before, a feeling of forever floating in barely-existence; eating, reading, exercising with endless tedium. But even now he wasn’t sure when the girl’s arms became his, when her smile or unkempt hair or even her disappointed gaze became an extension of himself. It would have crept in slowly, eating away at the edges of him until the lines between them blurred completely.

He feared he would always want her near.

He hadn’t visualized her in person in weeks; she’d confined herself in the library, careful to only venture out for sustenance and only after scanning to make sure he was somewhere else. Some weeks they would cling to each other, relying on each other’s panting breaths to combat madness, and others they wouldn’t speak at all, drowning in daily activities to keep them going. Apart, separate.

Two might be better, _saner_ than one, but it could still be terribly lonely.

 

**00078**

He kicked absently at one of the tubes connected to some Nobel Prize winning scientist, watching it sway back and forth before slowing to a halt again. If she noticed him there she didn’t acknowledge him. She was staring at the cargo again when he finally approached her. She seemed to spend more and more time there; _staring_ , asking questions.

Dangerous inquiries.

 _“Why can’t we wake them up?”_ He never gave her an answer to the question asked ceaselessly since they'd agreed to coexist on the ship, and eventually she stopped asking. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. She wouldn’t want the truth; that he wasn’t prepared to risk his life to wake the dead. This was untested, uncharted territory. He couldn’t be sure they would even wake up.

Or wake up normal.

Instead of waiting for her eyes to ask the question her mouth no longer did, he pulled her closer. Lips and tongues met in a remembered step, engaging in something more productive than quiet rumination. He couldn’t call it familiar, but it came close. Very close, as close as a man like himself might get to comfortable. He would never admit the relief he found being near the girl. She would never have to know.

Her small hands moved to the zipper at this chest, guiding it down far enough that he could slip out of it easily, quickly. Mouths rushed, _but why?_ The urgency was theirs to dictate alone; there would be no intruders, no later appointment. He helped her shrug off her own clothing, dropping to his knees to place wet kisses to her stomach, hands firm on either side of her waist. Her fingers dug into his scalp and yes, they may have had nothing but time but he pulled her down all the same, desperation clear in both of their actions.

The floor was unforgiving, but Petyr chose it more often than not anymore. Maybe the pain helped him remember what it was like to be human. The taste of her mouth, a nearly-soundless moan in his ear as he gave a deeper thrust into her. The way her walls clenched around him. The way she said his name. She was the only one alive who knew his name now with the exception of himself, and some days, some weeks, he would forget it entirely.

Until she said it again. That was humanity. It had been so long since there was anyone else but _them_ , he wasn’t even sure if he knew what it meant anymore, the word human.

 

**00079**

“How many of us do you think there are left?” She asked him, after. They were still on the cold floor, she remained curled against his chest, her face still flushed and faintly glistening. Her finger toyed with the mark on his chest, the one that prevented him from having his own little tube, preventing him from being cargo.

“Not many, I imagine.” His own hand came up to stroke her messy auburn hair. It was long, nearly waist-length due to lack of hairdressers and lack of anyone to care. The tools were available; Petyr had presented her with a pair of scissors long ago, but she still let her hair grow.

He knew what she would ask next, even though her question was only a movement of lips with a light exhale. “Do you think we’re it? Are we the last ones?”

In truth, the thought crossed his mind often. The last communication he’d received was a year ago, and it sounded grim at best. A request for aid that no one was equipped to respond to. He didn’t say what she wanted to hear, that there must be other life out there, _and we’ll find it._ He settled for something truthful.

“I don’t know.”

Across the room, in one of the chambers, a body twitched.


	4. 00108

**00108**

The only place she kept quiet was in the library.

She spent more time there than anywhere else on the ship. So much so that it became the first place he looked when he searched for her. And there he found her then, pouring over stacks of nonfiction spanning the fall of the Roman Empire. The books, so unnecessary on Earth, were stocked to ensure history would be preserved if computers failed. Sansa had probably never seen a book on Earth, let alone a vast room with shelves full of them. He could understand her fascination.

That didn’t stop him from gently pulling her up to standing and guiding her against the desk, mouth meeting hers in a lazy embrace. There was no protest from her when he pushed the stacks aside and guided her down onto the large desk, wet kisses trailing down her neck as a sigh escaped her lips. One-piece jumpsuits were then removed in practiced motions until she pressed up against him, waiting and wanting. She was noiseless when they fucked in that room, a sort of reverence for the stacks that held her passion.

 

**00111**

He thought she had been a figment of his imagination at first. Seeing her through the monitor with her fiery hair whisking to and fro as she scurried around the pantry, picking out food he wouldn’t notice missing. Well, he _hadn’t_ noticed it was gone. Her clothes were worn and frayed; it would have been too tricky to invade his own garment stores, and they were designed for a man of his build anyway. They would have been of little use to the tall and delicate vision before him.

A _vision._ Was that all she was; the imaginings of a man slowly unhinging? A lie, a hallucination? He had considered it audibly to himself, muttering at the screen in front of him. How many months had it been since he’d left his green-blue home that was even now probably ablaze? Had it been a year? The date escaped him.

Time had become worthless early on in the trip, maybe as early as a few days in. It didn’t matter, mostly because he didn’t care. Humans created the concept of time as he understood it, and humanity was all but extinct. And so to him it was just an intangible thing, unreliable in a ship that could travel at speeds that reduced the beat of a second to more of an approximation than a constant.

  
The girl, however, was quantifiable. There was one. One body, two eyes, one soft mouth. 24 ribs under skin, two endless legs, pulses that were palpable as opposed to the rest of the bodies in the vessel. If he went to her, stood where she stood, he was certain she could be corporeal. _She must be real._

For a while, he just watched her.

He could guess who she was; she had her mother’s hair, after all. She must have snuck her in, hid her away after his refusal to bring her with him. She would have been hiding, foraging in the interim, for as long as he’d been aboard.

He considered the alternative; that she was a mirage and he had reached a level of derangement beyond help. Maybe that would be easier, a true indication that he had crossed the line between reality and make-believe. If he was sane and she really stood there, living and breathing and existing, then there would be complications.

His first thought had drifted to the rations. Sharing could prove to be dangerous, decreasing a longevity that he had been betting on. Would there be enough food for a decade if she rummaged through the stores daily? He thought not.

The second consideration had been the idea of company. He had refused it, had chosen the ship that wouldn’t allow for companionship. He didn’t need a friend. Even if he avoided her he couldn’t say how long it would last. Eventually, through his terms or hers, or even by accident, they would come face-to-face. Dialogue would surely follow.

His last thought had been anger. Anger at Cat, for shoving her daughter into his world, a daughter that might have been his if he’d had his way years ago. Anger at the girl, for sneaking around like a little rat. Stealing food, stealing space in his moving home, stealing his sense of aloneness.

And then later, for stealing noises from under his ribcage, rumbles and moans spanning unknown and unmapped space. She stole from him the first time she came to him, when she first wanted him of her own volition. She took part of him there on the chair, grinding and writhing against him. She had still been so unsure, still so new, so untouched. Fingers stroked too delicately against the bulge of his suit. Tongue moved mechanically, tentatively against his own. Undulations uneven, she had been so uncertain in finding her own pleasure inside of him.

It only made him want her more. And that hadn’t been the plan, had it? He meant to kill her; the useless redundancy aboard a ship that already had a competent minder. The poison he kept hidden would have done the trick. The girl had to go.

He didn’t take her life, but he did his own fair share of other sorts of taking. First her innocence, followed quickly by her naivety. Trapped in a metal can forever gave him ample time to _educate_. And what was he taking from her now? Her ability to hope? The chance to have another companion? The idea of reanimating the hibernating humans stored aboard the vessel weighed heavy on his mind.

How much more could he take from someone who had so little to give?


	5. 00243

**00243**

This ship was the largest to leave, heading for one of the seven planets within traveling distance that could potentially support their brand of life. The vessel attempted to mirror that as well, an effort to make the trip more comfortable, more survivable. The builders thoughtfully kept him in mind, creating a recreational area, a small library and even a swimming pool to combat psychological breakdown.

The other ships were manned by two conscious caretakers, more for companionship than anything else. Because this was the largest, traveling the farthest and carrying the most cargo, _the real prototype_ , it was only necessary to accommodate one aviator. That’s why he’d volunteered for it. He didn’t need ( _or want_ ) anyone else to keep him sane.

Several weeks into the trip he had mastered his routine. Keeping the mind and body active was tantamount to maintaining his sanity. Space had the potential to be his forever, and he had learned already, so early into the voyage, what it meant to lose control. Books, fitness equipment, jotting in a journal, he _needed_ those things, certainly not human contact, to keep him lucid.

Despite his adamancy about a lack of company, it was more difficult than he’d imagined. Having no news to watch, nothing to look forward to but more of the same, more of the dullness, would be a slow shock to anyone, even the most resilient mind. And so maybe that’s why he disregarded them at first; those signs of instability, the ones he’d read about while skimming the instruction manuals. Questioning reality, blurred vision, problems with recollection. He began to experience them all, and more.

Until he saw her.

 

**00250**

And oh, how Cat had begged and pleaded with him to stow away her children. To save them, to give them a chance, however miniscule it was. To keep them alive. Had it been hard to deny her? Possibly, but his recall was hazy. He did remember part of him being happy with it, giving a smug glance to her husband, _the noble Ned Stark_ who, with his own calloused hands, had built the ship that Petyr Baelish would board _quite alone_. 

Where had Sansa Stark been during his former infatuation’s entreating? His foggy memory saw the others, the older boys, the wild, younger girl. The Stark children had lined up behind their father to watch the ships leave. The youngest boy had tears in his eyes. The others stood stoically, hopelessly, while their mother begged an unknown man to take them all aboard and _save them_.

But _she_ hadn’t been there.

Had her father already stored her safely in the storage closet? Had he been the one to teach her how to control the computer, how to override the body scanners so she couldn’t be detected? Would he have directed her to where the food was stored so it could easily be pilfered? Had he taught her how to survive without provoking him, the monster whose deft fingers controlled the machine?

He would never ask her.

Because now he was the one who did the molding, the teaching. He taught her mathematics and the history of a world now gone. He gave her required reading; she’d mastered some of the classics already, able to write essays and give orations about story development and symbolism. Their world had ended, he’d reasoned, but learning was still important to the ones left. It gave them something to do, at the very least; a several-hour span of time each day devoted to sharpening their minds.

He educated her in other ways, too.

He showed her how to move against him, underneath him as he slid atop of her on his small bedroom cot, salted water mixing between bodies with her legs wrapped around him. He helped her learn to find her own pleasure, to chase it greedily while he watched her scrunched eyelids and open mouth and felt her grinding hips ebb and flow with his own.

He taught her how to sigh his name, and then how to yell it. Sometimes it was muffled into his shoulder and others it was aloud and uninhibited as he pressed her into a wall, pumping in and out of her with an urgency he shouldn’t have. Who was there to watch them, after all? Who was there to catch them in the act; her father’s ghost, perhaps? Did he lurk in the corridors in the form of well-made doors and walls, his sweat and blood imprinted on them until the vessel ran its course? Petyr thought not.

Some things she picked up on her own, the clever girl that she was. She had learned to stroke him _just how_ he liked, sometimes reaching him from behind, her chest pressed against his back with an arm wrapped around his torso. A lazy, teasing motion at first, until one or both of them grew impatient. She knew now what to say, what to do, to goad him into kissing his way downward until he reached where she throbbed, sucking and licking until she forgot her own name and only knew his, repeating it in a desperate chant, over and over. His name might have been a prayer, but he worshipped her in those rocking, fleeting moments.

 At first, the goal had been to mar the innocence she kept, to stain her. In the end, she was the one who left the mark.


	6. 00276

**00276**

A beeping from the control panel.

_That’s new._

He fiddled with the touch-screen in front of him, trying to pinpoint the complication. Had Sansa gone somewhere she wasn’t meant to? It wouldn’t have been the first time; the girl was certainly adept at _sneaking_.

No. She was in the library. Always in the library or the sickbay now. The past few days he’d brought her food, otherwise he was sure she would have starved to death. He could guess at what she was researching, but he didn’t want to think about it. She was getting more and more curious, toeing the line between innocent prying and something more concerning.

The beeping continued, the tiny dot indicating it was coming from an area of the ship that typically he alone ventured to. There were still several nooks of it unexplored. He was in no hurry to see it all, settling for his daily routines, but the area in question was one he knew well.

He stood up with an irritated sigh, resolving to fix the problem if only to stop the annoying tempo playing from the panel.

Venturing halfway across his metal home, he figured something must have been amiss in one of the control rooms, one he’d never investigated before. He found the door, almost vault-like, above the exercise room. It required a wall-ladder to reach it and was secured with a circular handle directly in the middle. He was quietly aggravated by the effort required, finding himself out of breath at the angle he was forced to turn the heavy ring.

In the end, the exertion was worth it.

The ship was designed for long-term existence; floating weightlessly around the vessel for years may seem like a good idea until the implications are considered. Muscles would atrophy, waste away to nothing. The heart’s functioning would slow, as well as decrease it’s ability to pump effectively. In the long run, it would surely mean death, slow and unusual.

Petyr had read the manual, the bulky one given to him before he left the planet. There was a gravity simulator, state of the art for its time, installed to insure he would never feel the changes so often heard about in movies. His perceived weight, the ability to walk from room to room would be maintained. 

Unless the lever he eyed in the corner of the room turned it off, that is.

 

**00277**

“Where are we going?” The girl trailing behind him stopped suddenly, crossing her arms and tiling her head to the side with a frustrated sigh. “I was _busy_.”

“You’re always busy.” _There’s no need to be busy_. He turned around, too pleased with his finding to let her childlike fit sour his mood. “Just come with me. You’ll see.”

She stood unmoving, arms tightening around the narrowing of waist under her ribs. Impatient, he grabbed a shoulder and proceeded to pull her to the gym, where she continued to stand, vexed, as he maneuvered the vaulted door open again. An expectant look downward, he kept one hand on the ladder and extended the other out to her, a beckoning. “Come on.”

“I’m not going up there, Petyr.” There was something else underneath the tight line of her mouth that indicated irritation. _Alarm_. She didn’t trust him. After all this time.

He couldn’t blame her.

“I’ll go first.”

 

**00279**

He pulled her up until she was standing in the sliver and white room, metallic cabinets probably filled with wires and buttons and flashing things lining the walls. “What’s so special about this place?” She was still on edge, fingers forming tight fists on either hand. Ready to fight, ready to run.

“Be patient, Sansa.” He gave her a slight smile, no more than a small tilt of the mouth, as a reassurance. The lever, the one he’d found earlier, was easier to pull this time, now that he knew what it did.

A groaning sounded underneath them, and the floor quaked for half of a second. Sansa cried out in panic at the noise, the shaking, until…

The effect was nearly instant; he watched her bare feet lift effortlessly up, saw her body tense as she was guided off of the cold ground, arms and knees flexing in a startled position. Confusion reigned for several minutes, her eyes widened helplessly toward him. Even in her terror, she was stunning, perfect limbs flailing around as she tried to get bearings where none were found.

And then, she relaxed, realizing there was no danger there, letting the weightlessness take over. Her hair expanded and spread out in all directions until it formed a sort of halo around her face. She looked like an exploring child in wonder; eyes traveling down to her hands, her legs, to the ground many feet beneath her.

And he too was floating, taking his eyes away from her to tilt his back, propelling his body into a zero-gravity flip, a demonstration for her. His reward for the absurdly easy task was a smile. A genuine, uninhibited one. Had he ever seen such a smile from her? No. He would have remembered it, kept it locked up and safe, if he had.

_She was beautiful._

The girl swayed from side to side, then spun around in place, experimenting with the newfound ability to _fly_ rather than walk. He just stared, reflecting on how he had considered keeping the place a secret, and that her initial fears had been valid; recalling that he _had_ considered killing her, long ago. If he had, he never would have witnessed her like this. Happy, if only for a little while.

When she finally tired of moving on her own, she found him waiting for her. Their collision was rocky, awkward at first as they grew accustomed to the push and pull. Eventually, open mouths met as he held her in mid-air. Had he given any thought to fucking her there? Certainly. That could come later; for now he was content to hold her, feel her, hear a carefree laugh as he used a single finger to drive her backward into the open space again before chasing after her.


	7. 00539

**00539**

He heard her before he saw her, soft bare-footed brushes to the cold floor of his room.

  
His eyes were closed, head resting on the pillow in the half-awake limbo he found himself in more and more frequently. How long had he been lying there? He’d forgotten night and day with no sun or moon to aid him; he only knew tired and rested. And tired often monopolised over rested, leaving him in a wandering, aimless state as he moved around the vessel without any real purpose save _continuity._

  
She’d been reading when he migrated to his cot, rushing through some old biology books as if she had some sort of deadline, wild-eyed and eager to finish the text at hand. He’d laughed at her, meanly, at her urgency. He’d mocked her for it; _why the rush?_ Time was their curse, time was their constant; everything else was fading.

  
He wondered absently if she was coming to argue with him, to shout or complain or cry at him for his words. He would take it, listlessly; he deserved it. Why should he find amusement, find fault, in what keeps her occupied? Even if her research bordered on dangerous.

  
Because even now, _especially now_ , there were some things she mustn’t ever know. And each day she inched closer to the information she must not discover.

  
When he opened his eyes to meet her looking down at him he was surprised to find no ire, no rage; the blue staring back was just as apathetic as his own, a cold greyish colour without the overhead lights to illuminate them. He wondered when it had happened. When they both ceased caring. A year ago? Two years? A month? A day? For the first time since he’d caught sight of the girl on his monitor, he wondered if he could trust his mind.

  
She sunk down onto the bed, curling into him. He adjusted, taking up the familiar, easy position as they silently and stilly passed the time.

  
“I’ve forgotten.” She spoke into his soft white sleeping-shirt.

  
“Forgotten what?” He closed his eyes again, finding some odd comfort in her warm breath across his chest, the movement of her lips as she lamented her unknown loss.

  
“People. Their smell.”

  
“You can smell me.” A simple answer; he wasn’t in the mood to reflect. Lingering on what they left behind would only make living without harder.

  
“Everyone smells different, Petyr.” It was a chastisement, as if she were a teacher correcting a student. He might have chuckled, _everyone’s dead now my dear and there’s no one left but us_ , if he wasn’t so fatigued; he’d used that tone himself with her a thousand times or more. “I even miss the bad smells. Like the smell of someone’s coat after they’ve just had a cigarette, or cheap aftershave.”

  
“I’m sure there’s some cheap aftershave in the storeroom, somewhere…”

  
She sighed, another long breath radiating heat to his sternum. “You’re not getting it. _You don’t understand_.” And then silence again, as she ruminated.

  
Minutes might have passed, or even an hour, if Petyr had thought to keep count. Long enough for her to have fallen asleep against him. Instead, he felt another sort of warmth; a wet sort of sensation where his diaphragm expanded, quickly cooling on his shirt.

  
He wondered how long she’d been crying.

  
He gathered her up then to sitting, moving her against him until their foreheads met. He had no words of comfort for her; there were none left. His hands grasped shoulder, but he didn’t shake them, _not yet._

  
“My mother had this awful perfume…Arya and I used to gripe about it, telling her she smelled like a dead skunk.” She held back a great sob in between breaths, rambling on. “I don’t even remember what a skunk smells like anymore. Petyr…this isn’t enough. We aren’t enough.”

  
It was the sound of desperation that worried him; her voice wavered and he heard the words she didn’t say: _I have nothing to lose_. He had forgotten as well. Forgotten Sansa had a family once, Sansa had people she loved. Those people, long dead, still haunted her, much like the girl haunted him in sleeping and waking and whatever existed in-between.  
For the first time in a long while, the man roused.

  
It was then he shook her, a firm rattling that caused her whole body to tense. “Stop this.” A command, a punishing tone. “We’re enough, Sansa. _We have to be_.” What did he mean to say? Did he think he could be enough? Father, lover, friend, teacher…the man wore thin playing all the roles and none of them. But he would be all this things and more, if she asked. Just for her and no one else.

  
If she was searching for comfort when her mouth met his in a crushing blow she wouldn’t find it there. Their kiss was a biting, greedy meeting. Where in the past Sansa might have pulled away, begged for a softer embrace, she held her own when tongues collided and he pushed her back onto the cot in a fluid, slamming motion.

  
He moved down her body, tearing her pants and underwear down her sunless legs. One hand reached to bring down his own zipper as he moved back up to connect with her own mouth again.

  
And when he filled her with her legs wrapped tightly around him, he remembered what it was like to truly miss something the way Sansa missed their old home.

  
_He’d missed her._

  
He moved in and out of her with a force he never thought he’d have again. And her, the moans she expelled, half-pleasure and half agony, while she cried for him to move harder, faster, anything to help her feel _something_ other than the terrifying loneliness they shared alone and together. Her fingers dug into his back, and he was sure there’d be blood if he paused to check. But he didn’t need to, because inside of her he was alive again, he was Petyr Baelish again and not a nameless, thoughtless speck in the smallest reach of the universe.

  
He existed because she did.

 

 

 

 

**00555**

He touched the glossy computer in front of him, sliding his fingers around the screen, skimming languidly through the camera views. When he finally found what he was looking for, _her_ , his fingers stopped their search. Eyes stared blankly, and maybe a little sadly, at the girl. He took a seat in the hard chair, propping an elbow onto knee and letting his chin rest atop his open palm.

  
She’d fallen asleep on a book with hair spread around her, tangled in and out of her arms which functioned as a makeshift pillow. 

  
_That hair._ Was that what first caught his eye? Was that was kept her alive; the auburn shade he remembered so vividly from his youth? His eyes drooped closed almost unconsciously. Images flitted around his mind; memories of a long-ago childhood, of secret fumbling kisses in the woods. A girl running away giggling, red hair flowing as she moved. And then later; a fight, a wound, a pledge to never let himself be bested again.

Had he broken the promise he made to himself now, in her? Green opened to watch the girl again though ubiquitous screens.

He wondered how her hair looked in the sun, what it would be like to run his fingers through smooth tendrils radiating beams of light. Perhaps she would have a smile for him; one of the rare, wide grins that seemed to take up her entire face. Maybe he would smile, too, for her and not her mother; she was no longer a doppelganger. She was herself to him now; a mélange of his Cat, of her upbringing and of his own teachings. He saw more and more of himself in her every day; the thirst for knowledge, a clever tongue and a lack of transparency. It was almost better that way; not knowing exactly what she was thinking, what she was planning. It made it interesting. 

But he would never see her basking in a sunny glow.

  
Of course the options were endless for them, if one wanted to see a star in similar shape or size. They’d grazed by burning spheres ten times larger than the familiar ball that warmed their decimated home. Glimpses of prettier suns, more vibrant or more bright, were nearly becoming common for them, _but it wasn’t the same_. It wasn’t _theirs_. The never-ending anguish of it all; there was no lush green to contrast the yellow and blue sky. No clouds above or rain-soaked cement below. Instead, they lived confined in black and white and grey. They lived without colour; they were forced to find their own ways to brings some semblance of humanity, of reality, to their days.

  
On a few, fleeting occasions Petyr would absently wish he could take her to see a movie in an upscale cinema, to walk around a zoo or a museum or even to swim in an ocean full of fish and salt. Other times he laughed at the thought; nothing but idiotic, childish delusions. And what's more, he told himself, if Earth was still their home they would never have become interwoven so hopelessly into each other. She would have a boyfriend her own age, a family to care for her. She would not have been educated so cruelly, so meticulously, on the ways of a world long gone by a man who initially wanted her dead.

  
He moved his free hand up to the screen again, index finding the files he was looking for quickly enough. He entered the password, and then another; he couldn’t be too careful with her lately. Trust didn’t often come into the equation. What was trust to them? There were no temptations, no politics, nothing to argue about between the pair. They existed, sometimes symbiotically and sometimes estranged, but always constantly aware of the other.

  
Petyr managed to keep a few things to himself anyway. Eventually she’d come looking through his belongings, his files, if she hadn’t already. The girl was too curious. 

She wouldn’t find anything; he’d make sure of it.

  
The sentence that appeared on the display was a short one. It must have been sent months ago now, and he couldn’t be sure how many days or years it had taken to get there. It was a warning, sent to every ship, or at least whichever ones remained. He had the line memorised, but every time he saw the words his stomach dropped anew.

  
His finger hovered for a second on the DELETE button before pressing down. She didn’t need to know; it would ruin everything. 

  
Was a lie of omission any better than outright deception? One last glance to the girl sleeping on the desk and he decided he didn't care. 


	8. 00621

**00621**

Sometimes, when Petyr was alone for long stretches of time, he would draw maps.

  
With a large stretch of paper and a set of graphite pencils, he would work for hours creating a small scale version of where they were and where in the universe they had been. Each stroke was carefully pressed against the sheet, with exact parallel and adjacent lines crossing the scope to delineate a mileage. In this way, he created something like the old maps of the world he’d seen against the walls of his primary school.

  
He used the computer as his guide, relaying the information he needed to make the design precise. At his feet, a dusty box filled with pictures of similar stars and planets sat, edges already worn and curling. With an abundance of technology on hand, far more accurate than his human attempts, neither Petyr nor Sansa had need to refer to his older etchings. Still, as if on cue, toward the end of each individual piece, she would appear by his side, appraising his work with a smile. And then away it was stored, to the box, with the rest. 

And so these maps, he knew, served no purpose.

  
When the paper was filled, the greyish utensil shading in the last planetary shape, she drifted next to his chair, careful not to disturb or bump him while he worked. “I like this one.” She spoke softly, as soon as his pencil was set aside. “There are more stars around us now. It’s brighter.”

  
“I hadn’t noticed.” He leaned back into the seat, shoulders eased in relief as he looked up at her.

  
Her fingers slid across the corner of the sketch, curling the edge before the passing of time had a chance to. She was silent for several minutes, seeming to struggle with her words. Until: “Petyr…I-“ She paused, looking down to where her hand worked. “I want your help with this.”

  
 _This._ He supposed she didn’t have to say it; they both knew what she was obsessing over. Green swept up to look at her face. It was hard for her to ask, after all the time that had passed, after her stubbornness. It would be harder still to refuse such a request.

_But he would._

  
Instead of an answer, he lifted a sore arm to bring her long, reddish hair into a loose fist. It was messy, unbrushed for days most likely, while she spent her hours reading in place of grooming. It fell in waves below her waist, unbound and wild. “Your hair’s getting long.”

  
“Is it?” She looked down at his hand, regarding her auburn locks as if they were some foreign object, not something connected to her by blood and tissue and genealogy. “I thought you liked my hair.”

  
He abandoned his hold in favour of her form, an arm around her waist bringing her to rest on his thighs. He buried his face in her neck, a deep inhalation to pull in her scent; the familiar, citrusy soap she used amalgamated with something uniquely her. “I do.”

  
She leaned back, against him, tilting her head to the side to accommodate him. “Do you want to cut it?”

  
Sansa had never asked him to cut her hair before. The girl was pliant against him, allowing his mouth to connect with her neck, open and wet on pale skin. He smiled into her as his hand moved to unzip the front of her suit, pulling it down just far enough for him to slide his hand in. Without preamble, fingers crept to circle the spot between her legs, the place his tongue and hands knew so well. She arched, spreading her knees slightly as her head fell back onto his shoulder.

  
Did she think that yielding to him would in turn make him more malleable? Did she truly believe she finally found a solution to their endless tête-à-tête? Sansa should have known better, after all the days, after all the years, spent in each other’s company.

  
He could feel her wetness now, her wanting, as digits continued to work. Small sighs started to escape her lips as the pace quickened. She began her own undulations, pressing and retracting against the man’s growing hardness, and he couldn’t help but move as well, mouth searching up to find her own, both twisting to allow lips and tongue to meet in a hungry connection.

  
He could feel her getting close, her movements erratic and clumsy atop him. A final set of strokes and she was gasping in his mouth, and then sinking onto his chest in the dazed aftermath. Sleepy eyes, _and how could they still look so innocent, so young_ , looked up to him after a moment. “Will you help me, Petyr?”

  
He knew what would happen if he said it; a barrier would erect, a divide. But still, he said it anyway, as fingers left her warmth and gently zipped her suit up again.

  
“No.”


	9. 00700

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (holiday chapter, so it's a bit out of order)

**00700**

 

He could hear music.

  
A distant, familiar tune, but one that he was unable to place. It would have been a decade since he’d heard it last. The piece his ears picked up was an instrumental version, although he was sure there were words to accompany the catching tune.

  
He could remember something about bells.

  
Hesitant feet followed the noise down through halls and rooms, beyond the library and fitness area until he reached the rarely used dining room. As soon as he stepped though the doorway he knew the name of the song spilling out of the space. How had he forgotten in the first place?

  
_Silver Bells._

  
The auburn haired girl stood waiting, grinning at the awestruck man in front of her. One of her grey jumpsuits had been cut and sewn into something resembling an evening dress. It hung long, hugging her slender frame around the waist, so unlike the baggy garment she typically wore. Ivory shoulders and neck were exposed; the fabric clinging instead to her arms. Her pale feet, as usual, were bare.

  
The tree must have been from the garden. A small, pitiful thing, really, but Petyr couldn’t help being impressed with the lengths she’d taken to make it look like a festive pine. Small silver and red crystals hung from scattered leaves, not heavy enough to cause a drooping. He didn’t know where the tinsel came from; was it fashioned from her hands as well, or was there an emergency supply closet he was blissfully unaware of?

  
“What makes you think it’s Christmas?” He leaned in the doorway on an elbow as greyish eyes swept over the handmade green and red paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. The was a table as well, filled with a makeshift feast of various preserved meals decorated to appeal. “It could be May for all you know.” _Not that there were months anymore, anyway_ , he didn’t say. Why spoil her mood?

  
“It just _feels_ like Christmas, don’t you think?” She gave him an encouraging smile, pointing to the floor next to the tree. “Sit down.”

  
Unable to refuse her while she was in such good spirits he tentatively moved across the room and dropped down by the colourful plant, eyes narrowing suspiciously. This was something new, something unexpected in their world of tedious predictability. The girl had never shown interest in celebrating any holidays before; he’d assumed the reminder of her lost family, lost traditions, would be too painful for her. But she looked excited, _she was glowing_ , as she followed him down to the ground. He was taken aback by how oddly contagious her smile was, granting her a raised eyebrow to match his amused smirk.

  
“What’s the best thing about Christmas?” She nodded down to the ground near where Petyr sat. There was a parcel under the tree; a small rectangular thing with silver wrapping. She bent forward to pick it up, delicate hands then handing it to the sitting man. “I made you a present.”

  
He frowned up at her, cradling the box between his fingers. He never really celebrated the holiday, even before his home was a tin ship. “I didn’t get you anything.” _Get you anything_ , as if he might have just gone to a store, heeding the suggestions of a polite salesperson in a Christmas sweater. It was odd, knowing he would never have a chance to pick out a gift for her.

  
“Well, you didn’t know it was Christmas.”

  
He pulled the paper away, revealing a tiny white box filled with small, greenish leaves. Mint leaves; another thing quite unexpected. “I thought we didn’t have them.”

  
“I found some seeds a while ago, mixed in with some other plants. I wanted it to be a surprise; I remembered you saying you missed mint in your tea.”

  
She’d been planning this for a while, then. Growing the weed-like plants, nurturing them in the garden she’d built with barely a finger lifted from him. Weeks, months even, preparing for a holiday that now only existed in their own minds. It caused an odd discomfort in his stomach; he was unprepared, unable to reciprocate.

  
And suddenly, he remembered; there was something he could give her, the one small thing he had left to give. “Stay here.” The man left her there without another word, making the maze-like trip back to his quarters.

  
He returned with a closed fist, feeling the coolness of the trinket in his palm. “Close your eyes.” Sansa did as she was commanded, eyes firmly shut as the man crept behind her, loosing the object from his hands. Silver fell upon her neck, one of his hands sweeping her hair away so he could fit the necklace around her.

  
“It was my mother’s. One of the only things I took with me.”

  
“It’s beautiful.” The girl held the tiny bird between index and thumb, turning it around a few times before setting it back down to rest on her skin. She rotated, until she could face him properly, arms wrapping around her neck, leaning into him.

  
_And so are you._ Should he tell her what he was thinking? Did she know? Instead of with words, he said it with his wanting stare, guiding her backward with his hands on her waist until her spine met the wall. He told her with his fingers, hitching up the meticulously made dress until it could be pulled over her head and discarded to the floor. There were no words left anyway, he conceded to himself; his mouth was too preoccupied with hers, with tasting her tongue, to say anything at all. And she was preoccupied as well, snaking a hand between them to reach for his zipper.

  
Petyr didn’t often question his relationship with the girl, or the fact that he was still desperate to have her, even after all the years between his first glimpse of red. When he did think about it, his thoughts inevitably wandered back to the days when his goal had been murder instead of companionship. But those were images far from his mind as his fingers slithered between her thighs, his light touches teasing an impatient whine from her mouth.

  
Against the wall he raised her, his strong arms holding her in place while he positioned himself at her entrance. With his ear next to her soft lips he could hear her gasp as they joined; he would never tire of the tiny noises she made. Her arms were an anchor, keeping him in place as he set a slow tempo.

  
Should he tell her his own personal truth; that he would give up a thousand more Earths, eight billion more people, if only to sink himself into her once more? He didn’t need to; not while he was moving in and out of her, not when he possessed the only gift he would even want.

  
Much later, in quiet rumination, he would come to regret the things he did not say.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. 00784

**00784**

 

Even after his rejection, she let him cut her hair. Locks were dampened to assist with the procedure before the girl took a seat on a stool, auburn falling heavily, tracing down her spine and below her sacrum. He held the silver shears as if they were surgical tools, delicately combing and organising reddish tendrils for the sacred operation. The first snip, and he watched the long pieces fall gently down onto the sterile, white floor. She sat listlessly, defeated while he worked. His hand was steady, methodical, as the length of her hair shortened to rest at the middle of her back. He knew she wouldn’t stop searching, even without his assistance.

 

 

**00801**

 

She was standing in the middle of the room, the large cryogenic tubes on either side of her. The box was in her hand; his box, the one filled with his illustrations, but that wasn’t what concerned him. Above that, he was fixed on her face; mouth open and breath slow and deep. Her eyes were a wide, savage blue. She spoke carefully, barely above a whisper. “There’s nothing there, Petyr. Nothing about them at all in that library. And you knew that, didn’t you?”

He didn’t move, but stayed several feet away from her. After what seemed like weeks of apathetic behaviour, he was caught off guard by her sudden severity. He was calm when he replied, hands at his sides in a neutral stance. “The technology didn’t exist when those books were published.”

“Then why did you tell me to look there?” Tears were filling her eyes, the blue reflecting through pleadingly.

_Why._ If he was being truthful, which he almost never was anymore, he could barely remember telling her to search there in the first place. It had been a deflection, a temporary distraction until he could devise a better lie for her. But she was consumed instead, in her search, in her reading. Why create a second deception, then, when the first was working so well? “Because I knew you wouldn’t find anything.”

_And there it was._ And there he waited, for her reaction. A tiny lie that branched out years and spanned galaxies to create a long and winding forest. She was aware of it now; cutting her way through the timber and foliage. He watched the implications formulate in her eyes; all that time wasted in that room, the stacks of books poured over in desperation, in a need for companionship. Because that was what she wanted; in the end; she’d said it herself, _they weren’t enough_.

She heaved the box upward, and he was struck by what she’d done. Thousands of small, ripped white and grey flecks of paper were thrust into the air. Some hit the ceiling, other spread in all directions, circulating in and around them. Fragments of his ruined work covered the tubes, her hair, and lined the floor like snow. Did she mean to hurt him? He didn’t know if he could hurt anymore.

Heels turned, and the man left her there, in her world of papery snow.

But she followed; rushing after him, unable to leave it alone. For once, he craved isolation. Annoyance burned in his chest as he turned to meet her in the hallway. She was still covered in the leftover pieces of his maps; her wintry gift to him. Even irritated, he wanted to brush the fragments from her hair. He wanted to take her mouth, to stop her from asking more questions. He just wanted her.

“For God’s sake, Petyr-“

“God?” He laughed, then. A cruel howling directed at her furious face. The pink on her cheeks from the anger was surely closer to red after his mocking. “Where’s God, Sansa? Where?” She didn’t have an answer for him, judging by the way her eyes traveled to the chilled floor, the way they sometimes did when she found herself backed into a corner. “You know where God is?” He gave her a wretched smile while a hand lifted, two fingers pointing to his own heaving chest. “Me. You. We’re the closest thing to God here, the closest thing there is now.” Green eyes flicked back to the chambers for half a second before returning to the girl. His voice was low and controlled, but the rapid intake of air between each pause in speech gave away his ire.”We make the decision with every single breath we take to let them sleep instead of suffocating them with the pillows under their heads. We are the only authority. Us; not your God. You and me…we’re it.”

“So…” She was so quiet, so unlike her. The fire was gone from her affectless, watery eyes. She was suffering, she had been for a long while. “You don’t believe there’s anything?”

He knew he should stop, he knew he should still his mocking tongue, but the man continued. “How could there be?” Two steps toward her, that terrible tilt of the mouth remaining. “It’s a foolish God that would kill the entire congregation.”

The girl quieted, brows furrowing for a moment before she looked back up to him. One glance at her face swept the smile from his own. She was the girl again, the naive little daughter of his past love. Gone was the confidence that the years, and Petyr himself, had granted her. The fire, the spark that kept her hoping, seemed to extinguish in front of him. For the first time in a long time, he worried he’d gone too far.


	11. 00899

**00899**

 

They didn’t speak again until much later. Or it _felt_ like much later to Petyr. He rested on his cot as was typical for him, hands secured behind his head in place of a pillow. What was _later_ anymore? What did it mean? He could count seconds and turn them into minutes, into hours, but eventually it all bled together, confused by the lack of sun and the lack of schedule to adhere to. There were no rules; there was nothing.

  
And he felt _nothing_ more, now that he knew she felt it as well.  

  
The entire ship was covered in a fog. The halls felt heavy, the air was difficult to suck in. It was her fault; the tension the girl emitted seemed to create a thick layer of haze to cloud his thoughts, his habits. He was waiting, waiting for something to happen. Something that he’d expected long ago.

  
It was while he was on the thin, single mattress that something _did_ happen. He heard her before he detected the cool, sharpness against his skin. Petyr felt her creep into the room as if she were a part of him; an extra limb or added sense. He kept his eyes shut, carefully relaxed as she slithered like the reptile that _he_ was; she’d learned a great deal from him, after all.

  
When the blade touched his neck he did not flinch. “I would have guessed poison.” _A lie_ ; he knew her better than that.

  
"We don’t have any.” Her voice was calm and quiet, but the man was not convinced.

  
Hadn’t he told her about the vial he kept hidden, the liquid guaranteed to end a life? Another lie to add to the list, then. “I’m sure you could have figured something out.” He shifted slightly as he slowly opened his eyes to gaze at his threatener. She would see no fear behind the greenish colouring. “It’ll be messy if you do it this way. Do you want blood on your pretty little hands?”

  
He’d irritated her; her face formed a near-scowl, replacing the fear evidenced in her quivering lower lip as she pressed the blade closer, not yet marring his flesh. “I’ll manage.” She straddled him in one quick movement, her free hand slamming against his chest. Was it an attempt at dominance? Was she trying to keep him down?

  
 _He wasn’t fighting her_. He didn’t have to.  

  
His arms were still settled behind his occiput. Oh, and how that grating feeling inside his chest protested when he offered her a pitiless smirk. “Your blade is shaking.” _Your hands are shaking._ “Where did you get the knife?”

  
The weapon stilled after his _keen observation_ ; her hands grew more sure at the advantage she held atop him. “My father didn’t trust you. He said I should use it in an emergency.”

  
So she had her secrets as well, after all this time. He considered mentioning something about hypocrisy, but decided against it; better to not taunt the girl with the knife, even if he knew she wouldn't use it. “This doesn’t seem like an emergency.” Still, Ned was smarter than he gave him credit.

  
She ignored his attempts to dismay her, focusing on her goal behind lucid blues. _Good girl_. “Tell me what you know.”

  
Slowly, with more caution than he really felt he needed, he pried his hands from behind his head. They moved, they stole inch after inch, neither of them leaving the other’s gaze, until his fingers found her hips. The simple act of touching her was enough for his thoughts to shift, eyes surely darkening in a familiar tell.  

  
Her grip faltered for a second, before righting itself above collar. The resolve was leaving her, flowing out of her like a mist, replaced with the same desire building in him, her lips parting as she tried to maintain the upperhand. But it was fruitless; they were the same, they had been for so long. When he felt, she felt. And that was why he would never have to fight her, never have to worry she would spill his blood or place some foreign, lethal liquid in his drink.

  
They needed each other. All he had to do was remind her.

  
Tentatively at first, his grip tightened at her sides. Slowly he started guiding her, languid oscillations against him, careful not to disrupt the hand still holding the knife. He closed his eyes, appreciating the feel of her movements. A deep exhale left him, causing her to react and press the steel further against his skin. But even without his vision fixed on the girl, he knew it was halfhearted; her pelvis rocked without his interference now. “Ah, Sweetling. It’s your choice; kill me or fuck me, you can’t have both.”

  
Her mouth found his before the blade was removed; she kept it there for a few long moments, until his hand found her hair, tangling fingers into her locks in an entreaty for her to come closer.

  
The knife fell to the floor. The choice was made.

  
It was much later again, after remaining tangled in each other, that his fingers brushed against the dried blood on his neck; a small, harmless new wound not far from an old scar.    



	12. 00900

**00900**

 

The knife was on the floor still; Petyr could see it from the corner of his eye. The blade pointed toward the door, toward the hallway, _toward the exit_. Instead of watching the weapon, instead of wondering how quickly she could reach it from where she rested, his darkened green eyes stayed on her.

It was that thought that was most frightening to him. More than the nothing of space, more than never reaching their goal; his guard was down when she was with him. His defences were non-existent. He found himself wondering when the shift occurred. The first time he fucked her? No, certainly not; sex and trust were not things so closely entwined for him. In fact, they stood firm on opposite ends of the spectrum. Physical contact was a tool, something to be used to an advantage, much like the steel on the ground.

 _Until her._ Forever an exception in his world. And so _she_ was the dangerous one, not the tangible weapon she wielded, _just her_. Against him then, _comfortable_ , with no lethal intent any longer, but it didn’t matter. She was the poison he drank willingly; the toxin he craved.

The change in the girl from murderous to affectionate was one he wouldn’t comment on. There was no need, not while she was beside him, sated and warm. Her breath was a steady flow of heat to his chest; he would never have need of a blanket with her near. Her hair was a cover of fire around her shoulders, and his. He would let it burn him, if she desired.

She stirred next to him, sleepy and contented. Her neck craned upward to capture his mouth in a slow, open kiss. He accepted it gladly, stealing a glance to the metal on the floor before pulling away just to dive in again deeper, a retreat and advance that quickly turned into something instinctive and basic.

Afterward, they were quiet; they were always quiet. Words were tiresome, words were boring to them.

Until she found something new to talk about.

“I know why he didn’t trust you.” She was staring at the scar then, watching the glossy flesh reflect back at her. “My father. He hated you, did you know that?”

He didn’t say anything, but his grip loosened as he pulled back, looking down to her. Of course he knew that.

It seemed difficult for her to pry the next words from her lips. “Did you love her?” _Oh_ , and how intensely she stared up at him, widened azure eyes scanning every inch of his features. Years without mention of her; he might have forgotten her mother’s name entirely, drowning in the breath of the daughter. But there she was again; his ghost, his burden. He supposed she was Sansa’s spectre as well, a reminder of which woman had come first.

 _Love._ He didn’t know what it meant anymore. But at fifteen, every single fleeting emotion meant the world. And she had been his world. “Yes.” The long and short of it was there, all in one syllable. He would not lie to bring her ease. He'd done that enough already. 

Sansa nodded, slowly, understanding in a way that a younger person might. She had been a teenager, after all. Much more recently that he had. The girl was silent for long moments, nearly squirming against him. She was ruminating; he knew her well enough to know there was a question left unasked. But when she finally posed it he found himself unprepared; the words were almost inaudible when she asked them: “Do you love me?”

The was a fault, there, somewhere. The man was not young anymore. He did not carry the illusions he had decades ago; they had been ripped away from him when he his chest was torn open. If they weren't trapped, if he had the freedom of choice, would he still have the same level of devotion toward her?

The truth; he didn’t know.

But the kiss he gave her then, the ardour in which he bestowed it; left no room for doubt from her.

 

 

**00980**

 

She did not go to the library, like she so often did. She spent her time with him instead. Sometimes in silence, others in desperate need of release. But she did not go to the library.

Eventually, she began going off on her own again. Petyr didn’t look for her, not at first. Eventually, curiosity got the better of him, and he searched for his companion, scanning the control room cameras in vain, unable to locate her. She would always come back, in the end. He didn’t ask her where she would go. They both had their secrets.

It had changed; it had all changed.

Petyr didn’t question it. Perhaps he should have.


	13. 01001

**01001**

_A memory_

Unexplained noises weren’t common aboard the ship. Petyr had memorised every beep, every hum the vessel produced in the months he’d been in command. Even Sansa, the only variable in his equation, was nearly entirely predictable to him now.

And so his reaction was warranted when he heard a great crashing sound, reverberating down to the chair he was sitting on in the control room. He jumped up, moving immediately into a jog to find the cause of the tremor. It wasn’t so great a jolt to be a crash, and the monitors indicated no exterior damage. The cause was from inside, then. His mind worked best in that way, with a large measure of unknown elements, as he calculated any possible system errors.

_And where was she?_ Had she heard it, felt it as well? Had she caused it; the little mouse that scurried down his halls and ate his food, breathed his air? No, not a mouse, because she’d been discovered. She no longer hid from him like a rodent, although she did _avoid_ him. After the kiss, after shoving her against the control panel and threatening terrible things, they’d maintained their distance. He’d been thankful for it.

Down the corridor he ran in a direction rarely taken. Away from his room and the control room, he winded toward the back of the ship, where the escape hatches and storage materials were kept. And on his right he found an open door, one he’d never gone through. Feet carried him forward anyway, cautiously, unsure of what he might find.

He sighed a breath of relief when he saw her, standing anxiously and tearfully over a mess of water and glass, but the girl remained quite intact. And why was he relieved? She was nothing to him. It might have been better even, he told himself, if he’d discovered her collapsed in front of whatever the mess on the floor was. And that pool of water; it looked like some sort of fish tank, broken fragments of a simulated seascape amongst the shards of glass.

_What…_

Preoccupied with her, he did not yet have a chance to discover where he was. A quick survey told him the room was something the planners kept hidden from him in the blueprints. The area, according to the maps of the vessel, was meant to be a storage unit filled with biohazard equipment for the landing, if ever there was one. It wasn’t worth visiting; he’d pictured rows of shelves stocked with oxygen masks and yellow suits, nothing to concern himself with.

But that’s not where she was, not where he was; they were standing in a garden. There were small trees planted all around the room, grassy pathways leading in various directions. Blue and yellow flowers grew in planters lining the exterior of the greenery. Beyond that, it looked like fruits and vegetables grew near the back.

“They didn’t want anyone interfering with the plants until the landing…” The girl spoke, answering his unasked question, still staring at the ground with watery eyes. “That’s why they didn’t tell you.”

He took a step closer to her, surveying the damage. “What did you do?” There were a few tropical-looking fish scattered among the glass, unmoving. He could guess what happened.

“I wanted to see the fish, but I tripped and grabbed the aquarium for support. I didn’t realise it wasn’t secure…” The girl sobbed as she spoke, salty drops of water falling onto the dead animals. “I didn’t mean to kill them.”

In truth, he didn’t know what to say. Instead of words, he felt the impulse to find some other way to comfort her, against his better judgement. The girl was a nuisance; she was destroying his home piece by piece. Did she deserve comfort? Certainly not.

Her head lifted as he approached, and the man remembered again why it had been impossible to do her harm. She was human; one of the only ones left. And her flushed cheeks and swollen eyes were just further demonstrations of how much they’d both lost when their world was destroyed. And so he provided that consolation, if only for a moment, capturing her trembling lips with his mouth. Intimacy; the foundation of comfort, of reassurance.

He cupped her chin with both hands; teaching her, showing her just how to move deeper, slower. Had she been kissed before? Not with any experience, judging by the clumsy, unsure way her mouth moved. But she caught on quickly, resting her hands on his chest while she was _educated._

He could feel the warmth of her palms radiate through the fabric of his clothes, the heat of another person in a universe decidedly without, urging him on. And on he went, soon wanting more than just the feel of her hands. He disregarded reason, moving his hold down to her waist. The change in his alignment forced her arms away from his sternum, and she wrapped them around his shoulders instead to accommodate. Now the heat was compounded; her chest pressed against his own. He wanted to strip her, tease her, graze a breast with his fingers until he could feel her nipples harden in response.

One of her small hands reached for the zipper at his collar, meeting his gaze. She was uncertain, but playing the role of a confident lover, slowly pulling the teeth apart. He stopped her, covering her hand with his. “Don’t…” _Don’t start what you won’t be able to stop._

She continued to drag the clasp under his halting fingers, down below his umbilicus, before pausing to speak again. “It’s okay.” She tugged at the material on his shoulders, bringing the jumpsuit down to his waist. And then she saw it; the scar that bisected him; the scar that denied him his own cryogenic tube. The wound was old; a glossy thinning of skin displayed prominently down his chest. Her eyes widened, but she stayed silent.

He would never thank her for that silence.

The poor, misguided girl; she must have thought they would go slow. Did she imagine sex as something tender and gentle; is that what Cat told her? And while it was her hand that initiated the dance, there was no question that he would do the leading. In one fluid step his jumpsuit was discarded and his hands were on her clothes, shrugging her garment off of her slim, pale form.

He guided the girl down onto a small patch of grass, inhaling deep, taking in the scent of the plants, the scent of her wild, long hair. He was hard, he had been hard, since her hands were first placed on his chest. If she didn’t see it she could certainly feel him now, pressing against her underwear. Sliding the thin material down from her legs he then parted her knees with his own, readying himself to enter her. She was young, naive, pliable; she was perfect. Without being told, she wrapped her legs around him and slammed her eyelids shut in preparation. Did she know it would hurt?

“Take a deep breath, Sansa.” One quick thrust, one slide into her, and he was gone.

 

_It would be that memory, the memory of her innocent, learning form underneath him, that he would cling to, in the end._


	14. 01122

**01122**

 

Her final, extended absence was long enough for worry to seep into his mind. It crept slowly in, wearing around the edges, compounding each time he was unable to find her on the monitors. He would scan the empty rooms, waiting for any small sign of her, watching for a glimpse of red, and finding himself disappointed when there was none to be found.

He considered walking the entire ship, tile by tile, in a search. He thought of using the intercom to call her back to him. But he did not do those things, he _could_ not do them. And so he waited, and waited.

It was during one of those segments of time, lost in his own musings, that small hands covered his eyes, obstructing his view of the panel. If he was surprised, he did not show it. If he was relieved, he did not show that, either.

“Guess who.” Playful words, and she had she last been playful? He could hear the smile on her face; the light, airy inflection gave it away.

A rotten, festering part of him, born from his prior life and current isolation, wanted to punish her, deny her the attention she sought. He might be cruel, perhaps uttering something sharp, biting her with his words. Or he could ignore her altogether, leave her in that same solitude he had been gifted.

But in the end, a slightly larger, slightly lonelier part won out as the victor, covering her hands gently with his own. “Hm. Tricky.” He feigned consternation; she would be able to feel his brows furrow under warm, pale fingers. “I have so many friends, you know. Acquaintances, lovers, family…” _You are all of those things to me_ , he did not say.

“Shall I give you a hint?” The girl was being coy, voice dropping an octave as her long hair brushed on either side of his head, _a hint_. He breathed her in, the fruity scent of her hair, the _clean_ smell of her. The girl’s elbows dropped enough to place her mouth just below his ear; a dry peck. _A tease_.

Instead of replying, he pulled her hands away, bringing them down to his lips. He kissed them, softly, reverently. In his own way it was devout, and of course it was; in absence of a higher power he found his religion in the only way he could, _in her_. Her limbs were his shrine, her lengthy absences a test of faith, her returns were prayers answered.

Impatient then, she traced his jaw with her mouth, daring him to turn his neck to meet her as he dropped their joined hands. And he did, of course he did; he would always answer her call, even if those darker thoughts lingered underneath. He guided her around the chair, his lips never leaving hers, until the girl loomed over him.

And when she straddled him on the chair he could not help but remember the first time her unpracticed little legs came to rest on either side of his thighs. He recalled wanting to hurt her, wanting to touch her, wanting to kiss her, and yes, wanting her gone. She had been so desperate then, for survival, for comfort.

But then the dynamic shifted. He tried to pinpoint that moment, the instant, _the second_ , when that desperation became mutual, when the relief found was shared. When had he really, truly, started missing her, even when she was lying next to him?

“Sansa.” He’d forgotten to breathe for a moment; as they parted he found himself sucking in their shared air, taking in the girl’s own exhalation.

Her arms moved up, hands lightly finding greying temples. “Good guess.” The words were paired with an approving nod, a pleased smile. _Who else would you be?_

“And what’s my reward?” He could play that game, too, he decided. He gave her a smirk, a small tilt of his mouth that indicated something other than melancholy, and her face lit up as well.

She leaned in, an attempt at sensuality. “What would you like?” At first, the efforts of seduction had been emulated from films and books, having no other human resources. After a while, however, it seemed she learned to gauge his reactions. He preferred simple, effortless, and with her loose hair and still so innocent eyes, he found his prize.

There was no pause, no hesitation, in his answer. “You.” _Always you._

She puffed out a breath. “That doesn’t count. You already have me.”

_Do I?_


	15. 01246

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys. i have two endings. do you want the happy one or the sad one?

**01246**

 

He was in a field, and so he knew, with the surreal sort of awareness that sometimes comes with slumber, that he was dreaming.

The long expanse of grass was greener than his memory usually afforded, and the presence of a long-forgotten sun forced the muscles surrounding his eyes into squint. He looked down, down to his feet and to the grass sure to stain his knees and shoes, realising he was a boy again.

And she was there, as she so often was in their childhood. The red-haired girl was running away, and was it a game? It must be; they were laughing, and so he gave chase. He bounded after her with the youthful energy and hope that he once possessed, but had long forgotten. Still, he could not catch her. Try as he might, he always lingered just behind her, just out of reach.

They were building a rocket, then. It was the size of his arm, maybe, as they both leaned over the cheap material the toy was made of. It looked dreadfully familiar, like something he'd remembered seeing in a movie. A comically long fuse hung from the base, waiting to be lit. There was a sense of urgency in him as he clumsily worked to right the vessel, preparing it for voyage.

“Careful, Petyr! There’s precious cargo inside, we mustn’t rush!” Young Catelyn said to him, one hand pressing against his chest in warning. It burned his sternum, a blaze radiating down to his fingertips and toes, and he was certain, for the blink of an eye, that he was not dreaming. After all, dreams don't make you _feel._

But before he could think on it anymore, before he could light the fuse and send the ship away, she was fleeing again, scurrying away. Her fiery hair rippled behind her, glowing in daylight. And suddenly she was no longer a girl, but a woman, her limbs extending to match her curves, her laugh richer and almost seductive. She wore familiar gray, and he could see for a second the cold walls of a place distantly familiar behind her, constricting them both.

And when he caught up to her at last, it was a grown man’s hand that reached to clasp her shoulder, pulling her back and back and back, to him. When she finally turned it was Cat no longer; it was not the woman from his dream. It was her, _his Sansa_ , smiling back at him. The smile she gifted him was a sad one. Her eyes were sympathetic, pitying.

“Save me.” She whispered.

  
_How could he?_ His mind was dim and foggy with sleep as he confusedly wondered. _It’s only a dream._

 

**01247**

 

An alarm.

The sound reverberated against the bare walls, startling him into a sitting position. His first instinct was to scan the bed, the room, looking for her. She’d been there, curled against him in a sated drowse, when sleep had easily taken him. A quick glance before standing told him she’d been gone for a while, likely for hours.

His pace was a hasty one, making his way to the control room to discover the source of the rhythmic, low beeping. On further consideration of the incessant noise it was more of an alert than a caution, but it was a sound he was unfamiliar with, and so he sought to discover the cause. 

And still he looked for her, his head turning from side to side down any adjacent hall, expecting to see her joining him on his investigation. Perhaps she was already there, on deck, stationed at the helm and waiting.

But she wasn’t, and so it was Petyr alone that shifted fingers to the panel, touching the screen and waiting for a report to formulate. When the results displayed for him to see, the man was sure he forgot just exactly how to breathe.

**98% VIABILITY**

The words were paired with their map, highlighting a small sphere in the distance. A planet, one close enough to earth’s atmosphere that human life could, theoretically, be sustained. And it was _close_ , weeks away, if that. A sun-like star provided warmth, initial scans showed freshwater and plant life prospered there. Was this the home the scientists of Earth had targeted in the first place? Surely not; it was too soon. And yet, here it was…

A new home.

The man suddenly remembered his dream. The field; he could practically smell the fresh, green grass. He could feel the sun on his face. He could see her smiling at him, a real smile, one he'd never been granted before. 

_Where was she?_

He almost didn’t bother to check the monitors, as she rarely showed up on them now. It had occurred to him that she had figured out how to manipulate them so she could stay hidden; one of Ned Stark’s final gifts to her, perhaps. But he did check them this time, eager to tell her the news. He wanted to see her face light up; he wanted to see _hope._

But she did appear this time. He viewed a glimpse of red as he skimmed through the screens, switching to a full-sized view as soon as he caught it. What he saw caused a panic that he had never known before.

She was in the sickbay, and were his eyes playing tricks on him? There was another form there as well in front of the girl. Another person, another human in the room. His hands on her neck, choking.

And the man, _oh how he ran._


	16. 01248

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought about it this afternoon and decided to post my original ending, the one i had in mind from the beginning. it's the sad one, but i think it fits better into the story. that being said, i know it was pretty unanimous that a happy ending was desired, so i'll post that one as chapter 17, by this weekend at the latest, as i want to make it a bit longer and clean it up.  
> so, if you prefer to wait for the happy ending, you can just ignore this one and skip to 17 when i post it.  
> thank you so much for reading this. i know sci-fi is not everyone's cup of tea, but it has been my favourite fic to write by far. 
> 
> also, really lovely visual aid for it here: http://myrandar.tumblr.com/post/115210538383/lyannasnow-impact-event-a-petyr-x-sansa-au-x

**01248**

 

The man was too late. Two bodies on the ground, one familiar, one sprung from the open cryogenic tube to the right of where he stood. The male form was prone lying next to it, still twitching. She must have tried to bring him out of his sleep too fast, something must have gone wrong. Oxygen deprivation? An issue with the stasis? Or perhaps mere shock might have been the cause.

It was strange how rationally he considered the scene in front of him.

Petyr could see clearly enough the method of her demise; her neck was red already, eyes staring upward at nothing. The monitor had showed the man choking her, the struggle. The tube still beeped, almost far away in sound to him, as his mind did what it did best; worked in overtime.

It might have occurred to him then, in those final moments of true lucidity, just how easily it could have been avoided. If he’d told her he would help her, if he’d given her the information he knew, the outcome could have been so different. She might have ceased the endeavour altogether, if he’d shown her the messages sent by the other ships, warning him of their own failed attempts to bring back the slumbering people. In the end, he was not blameless.

Time passed and passed, and eventually he crouched down to meet her there, fingers gently sweeping back stray tendrils of hair. So carefully, as though even the tiniest pressure might crumple her porcelain face, he skimmed downward to where ear and jaw met. Further still, and slowly, pads of fingers reached the silver chain still settled around her neck. It felt cold against his skin; a contrast to her slowly cooling form.

She was still warm.

He pulled away, moving to stand again. For a moment he was unable to tear his eyes away, staring down without really seeing; he was preoccupied with his memories. This wasn’t his Sansa; this wasn’t the child turned woman in front of his eyes. He did not belong to a corpse.

“You were mine.” he whispered roughly to the dead girl’s body.

 

 

 

 

**[LAST ENTRY]**

 

He didn’t go into the library anymore.  
She was still there sometimes, sitting at her usual desk surrounded by the bound leather texts. He would see her through the computer screens, reading the carefully chosen books, hunting for answers she’d already found, much to her sorrow.  
_And his._

He didn’t go to his quarters.  
She would be there waiting for him if he went there, sitting on the cot with her auburn hair loose the way he liked it, a coy smile lighting up her features. Her hand would be outstretched to him with index and middle finger curling as if to beckon him nearer. With her welcoming eyes and noiseless words she would ask him to come with her, to stay with her, _to follow her._  
To lie next to her one last time.

Sleep instead came for him in minute-long moments before he was jolted awake again, seated on one of the hard-back chairs in the control room. Simply adjusting his eyes between waking and sleeping became a chore, and so he stopped trying to differentiate consciousness and slumber. He found an odd sort of clarity in relinquishing his bearings, a sort of lucidity he remembered faintly from his first weeks aboard the ship, before he found the girl.

What was her name again? _The red girl._ He was covered in her, like a stain. He’d tried to wash it off; he’d scrubbed and tore at his skin until the red was his alone, but it never really left. When his eyes closed, even in a single blinking millisecond she would be there again; atop him, under him, inside of him.

Sometimes Cat would be there, in the control room, hovering above him. Sometimes she’d be crying, other times merely shaking her head. _You were supposed to protect her, Petyr. You were supposed to keep her safe._

He hadn't tried hard enough, in the end.

He didn’t go into the sickbay now either, and Petyr couldn’t be sure if his emaciated form would carry him there anyway. It was such a long journey after all, travelling down the long, bright hallways he used to take to seek her out.

  
She was still there, in the room with the cryogenic tubes, sprawled out. Unbreathing. Unmoving. Unpreserved, not like the ones still sleeping in the chambers. He never actually checked; fingers refused to scroll far enough on the camera displays for that room to come into focus, but where else would she be?

The tea in his cup was lukewarm. He didn’t bother heating it anymore; he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to tell the difference. He forced it to slide down his oesophagus, praying it would stay in his stomach this time. It was the only thing that he didn’t throw back up now; everything tasted like dust to him; like ground up bone and blood and red.

Everything tasted like her.

 

 

**[END LOG]**


	17. (alt ending)

**(Alternate ending)**

 

He sprinted, running for his life. Because it was his life now, too; it had been for a long while. He was tied to her, bound to the girl. The tether strained and thinned as he moved; he could not let it snap. White and silver walls whizzed by, his breathing uneven and expelling in bursts; he could do nothing but be pulled toward to girl by invisible leads.

The were still in battle; the looming, strangling figure winning the skirmish. Before he could be rational, and there was no room for that anyway, he grabbed the man attacking her, wrenching the larger form away. From behind, Petyr roped an arm around his neck, receiving a face full of straw-blonde hair. He’d had the element of surprise on his side, and as the body he held began to still, he was thankful for it.

The form stopped moving, and he let go, watching the dead young man slide onto the floor. He felt nothing, remorseless lead staring down. A final twitch, and then nothing.

His eyes shifted slowly to her, to the cause of it, _the cause of all of it_. His gaze was hard, even as the weight evaporated from his shoulders, relief flooding through his limbs as the adrenaline left his system. “What have you done?” The words were quiet, almost thoughtful. Should he have been surprised? Surely not; she’d even asked for his help. Eventually he knew she would try, perhaps he’d simply been fooling himself into believing she needed him to make an attempt. She was not the dependent, naive girl she once was.

Sansa stammered when she spoke next, throat hoarse from the struggle. “I…I shut the door, I tried to stop it, but it was too late. He was too strong.”

The man couldn’t stop himself from striding over to her, crouching in front of her. One hand reached out to graze her neck, assessing the skin sure to bruise. “Why? Were you trying to get yourself killed?” He pushed the worry away, leaving it out of his tone.

She shook her head, wide-eyed, tears welling around blue. “I had to, Petyr. I had to see for myself. I need more, Petyr. More than this.”  
She was hopeless, then. Her work, her efforts, had all culminated to this point. The man could see she was worn, ruined from a life of captivity and near-solitude. But now, now they had hope.

“And you’ll have it. Can you stand? I have something to show you.” _More._ Yes, he could give her that. He could give her hope.

+

They decided to walk out together.

After the secondary scans determined the atmosphere was suitable, after the rocky landing that nearly knocked them to the ground, everything seemed to indicate the planet was safe to explore. It was daytime, although the days atop their potential new home were different, longer; it would take some getting used to. There would be no clouds in the sky, but they would have a sun, and they would have three moons at night to gaze up and admire.

Unbolting and prying open the heavy metal door, Petyr took her hand, guiding her down the ramp. He stopped, for one last moment, pulling her close to him, his mouth meeting hers in a slow, binding kiss. And when he broke away, she smiled at him, a smile he’d never glimpsed before, as they walked into the unknown.

 

**[END LOG]**


	18. [mid-story drabble]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this fic is over, but from time to time I get an idea for the verse this was set in, and post a drabble on my tumblr account. After a few requests I decided to add them on here as well, in case anyone who doesn't use tumblr would be interested in it. So I'll just tack them on the end of the fic to avoid having to search through the middle. Hope you guys like it!

She was more quiet than usual, idly staring at the tin of familiar food in front of her, pushing the sludge around with her fork. It had been a year, perhaps, since they’d run out of the better, more palatable nourishment, and they had recently decided on rationing out the limited vegetables the small garden provided. And so their meals were solely to keep them functioning; there was nothing to enjoy, nothing to savour.

The man watched her for a moment as she stared down at the remaining gruel. Should he ask what was troubling her? They hadn’t spoken in a day or so, and while that wasn’t unusual for the pair the air felt heavy.

He had nearly opened his mouth when she looked up to him and spoke. “You’re in a field.”

One of his eyebrows raised. “Am I?”

The girl nodded, a small smile beginning to play on her mouth. “Yeah. A field. A vast one, and the grass is short and bright, but not damp. I always hated sitting on damp grass. It used to stain my shorts and the marks never really washed out.”

Was this a game? Petyr set his utensil down, giving his full attention to her. Her own fork twirled absently in her hand as she conjured up a more detailed yarn. “There’s a little hill that we walk to, and the woods are on our right. Pine trees and dogwoods, I think. Little flowers and weeds in the grass. Lots of dandelions.” The girl closed her eyes to see it better, her mouth slightly open as she took a deep breath in, as if she could taste the fresh, open air. “There’s a lake, not a big one, but there are tiny fish swimming around if you look closely. Some children are flying a kite on the other side of the water. Do you remember kites, Petyr?”

He nodded. “I remember. I had a green one as a child.”

Long minutes passed and he simply watched her; the pale face worn with years spent in isolation suddenly looked so youthful, so alive. She was a girl again, the images taking hold like some soothing melody. He didn’t speak, he didn’t dare take it from her.

And then, a few easy breaths later she paused, opening her eyes to look at him again. “It’s your turn.”

“My turn?” The meal in front of him was cooling, and once cold, the food was completely inedible. “I wasn’t aware we were taking turns.”

The girl nodded solemnly, but there was playfulness there if he looked hard enough. Playfulness he thought was lost. “Yeah, we are, so tell me: where are we?”

The truth; he didn’t want to play. Memories hurt; the life he used to lead, the life that no longer existed on a world burned away. But she watched him expectantly, and he knew denying her this small thing might have much larger consequences. Just indulge her, you stupid fool. _There’s no one to be embarrassed by, not anymore. And more than that, she might be happy for a moment._

He stood up, and the girl tensed, likely assuming he was going to leave her there to her childish fantasies. But he didn’t; he moved to stand behind her, gently placing a hand on either of her shoulders. He leaned down, his mouth grazing her ear. “Those aren’t processed vegetables you’re eating. It’s Lozère lamb with thyme in one of the finest restaurants in Paris. I’ve taken us to France, you see. A romantic vacation.” Fingers moved to graze her jaw, a light touch, a tease. “The hotel overlooks the Eiffel Tower. Does that sound nice?” Cheesy, maybe, but he was having difficulty remembering exactly what romantic was anymore. “For dessert we’ll have rum savarin with whipped cream, I think, unless you’d prefer to skip it.”

The girl took a bit of her food and scooped it up with her fork, bringing the dull coloured sustenance into her mouth. She managed to make a mock satisfied sound as she swallowed. “Delicious. We should have a glass of wine while we’re at it.”

“Mm hm.” His nose brushed against her hair. “I have a bottle on the way.” She turned her head back, enough to look at him. “You think of everything.”

He smiled down at her. “You’re so lucky to have me.” It was too much then, and the man leaned in, taking her mouth. She opened hers in response, warm and familiar. And the truth was there somewhere as well; they could pretend, they could imagine that their home wasn’t gone, but he could not deny that she was the only thing keeping him grounded, keeping him sane.

He pulled away. “Enough, enough.” He took her hand, leading her up and out of the dining hall. Down the corridor they walked, the walls clean and white and nothing like an elegant hotel, until they reached her room. Remembering, allowing those images to surface in his mind, it caused his chest to tighten. Those were things they would never have again, those were things he could never give her. Lost things, painful things.

She could see it in his eyes, then, he knew, because the sadness crept into the blue he saw there. But the man continued anyway, walking her to the bed, gripping her lightly. Perhaps if he kept going he could fix it, convince them both it was real. “There are mints on the pillows when I set you down on the sheets. When you kiss me you can taste it.” Her mouth opened as his lips met hers, tongue dipping in to allow her the taste that wasn’t there. Small hands gripped him with some unfamiliar urgency, as if being close to him would right any wrongness she felt. He began to unzip her, making a tutting noise when he saw the plain, worn bra. “Oh, that expensive lingerie will have to go, my darling. I’d rather see you bare.” And go it did, and his clothing with it, until skin slid against skin, his body moving atop her, cock hard between her legs.

When he entered her she sighed in relief, her eyes closed, and maybe she could smell the warm summer air of France instead of the sterile clean of the vessel. Maybe he could too.


End file.
